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Porter Cable 20V Max Impact & Drill Combo Review

Porter Cable 20V Impact & Drill Combo: My Review

I recently purchased the Porter Cable PCCK602L2 20V Max Lithium Impact & Drill Combo kit. If you are a reader of the Powder Coat Guide, you will see I like to do many things on a budget. So you might guess that the drill I have been using for the past couple of years is the $20 Harbor Freight drill, and I used it for everything. Loosening bolts, sanding, screwing, ect. It was a decent drill and it was only $20 so I can't complain, I definitely got my moneys worth out of it. I worked in a shop a couple of years ago that supplied us with Milwaukee 18v LI impacts and I fell in love. They were on the top of my list for a replacement to my Harbor Freight Drill. Well, after reading all of the great reviews, my budget minded self decided to go with the Porter Cable kit since Milwaukee was double the price.

I have only had the Porter Cable kit for a week now I wish I had bought them sooner. These things are great. They seem much more refined than the Harbor Freight drill. The impact is a joy to use every time I want to loosen a bolt. Speaking of loosening bolts, it spins them loose like nothing. It was able to loosen my lug nuts torqued to 90 ft-lbs. It also drives screws into wood with no hiccups, a task that used to be difficult for the Harbor Freight drill. It spins very fast as well, small bolts and screws seem to fly out and you better be ready to let off the trigger when tightening fasteners into sensitive items. It is very easy to adapt the impact to use sockets, these 1/4" hex to 3/8" socket adapters are a MUST have. I just wish someone would offer a shorter version so the impact could fit into even tighter spaces while fitted with one.

For me the star of this kit is definitely the impact, but the drill is everything you would expect from a good drill. It has a 23 torque settings, pressure sensitive trigger, and it can drills nice straight holes. It is really great to be able to have it loaded up with a drill bit and the impact loaded up with a Phillips bit while working on a project. I no longer have to switch back and forth between bits.

The Lithium Ion batteries seem to give full power until they are actually dead, where the NiCd type batteries only offer full power when they are fully charge and will continue to weaken until the battery is dead. The Li-Ion battery has lasted me for a full day of working on the car and it charged back up in a couple of hours. this kit includes 2 batteries and a charger so you will always have a back-up battery ready to go. These batteries also fit every tool from the 20V Max line-up.

The LED light is nice and bright and you are always able to see what you are working on. The impact has a very easy to use siding mechanism for 1/4" hex bits, it only needs one hand to operate. The impact does not have any adjustability on torque, however the trigger is pressure sensitive. I was able to throttle the trigger while tightening the screws on the bottom of my plastic vacuum cleaner without cracking any of the plastic.

Appearance wise, these things kind of look like they came out of a Transformers movie, but I have grown to like the modern look. They have thick rubber pads to protect almost every corner. I will not be intentionally dropping the drills to see how protected they are, but they look like they would survive a fall quite nicely. I am still in the new-shoes phase with them so I have intentionally tried not to grab them with greasy hands, but so far they seem to clean up very easily with a soapy rag. There are lots of crevices though, so they may not stay perfectly clean forever.

Overall I am 100% happy with my purchase, my only regret is that I did not buy them sooner. I have had them for just about 30 days and I am still turning every small project into an excuse to use them. There are several companies competing in the Li-Ion market right now and they are all offering very similar packages. I have personally used Milwaukee and Dewalts line and I feel the Porter Cable offering is every bit as good as them, and Porter Cable seems to be the cheapest offering of the bunch. I have heard several sources stating that the new Porter Cable stuff and Dewalt are made by the same company and Dewalt costs 2x what the Porter Cable set does. These are very powerful, and they stay powerful throughout the entire battery life. They seem very refined compared to cheaper drills and offer everything that the kits in the $250+ price range do, minus brushless motors.

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